Titanic 100 Years Ago

They Said It Couldn’t Sink When the Icy Waters Claimed the Titanic 100 Years Ago By Alison Gavin and Christopher Zarr Perhaps no other maritime disaster stirs our collective memory more than the sinking of the RMS Titanic on April 15, 1912. The centennial of this event brings to mind the myriad films, books, and electronic media the disaster engenders. The discovery of the ship at the bottom of the sea in the 1980s brought to view intriguing artifacts. The National Archives holds Titanic-related ―treasures‖ as well: Senate investigation records, documents pertaining to Titanic passengers from limited liability suits, and congressional resolutions. These records tell the stories of the survivors in their own words. When Titanic set sail from Southampton, England, for New York City on April 10, 1912, no one, especially its builders, dreamed of its demise. The ship’s owners, the White Star Line, boasted of the size and stamina of the largest passenger steamship built until that time. Yet the ―ship that could never sink‖ sank less than three hours after the crew spotted an iceberg at 11:40 p.m. on April 14. Of the 2,223 people aboard, 1,517 perished. The lack of sufficient lifeboats was chief among the reasons cited for the enormous loss of life. While complying with international maritime regulations (Titanic carried more than the minimum number of lifeboats required), there were still not enough spaces for most passengers to escape the sinking ship. 1 The Carpathia was the lone ship to respond to Titanic’s distress signals, risking a field of icebergs in a daring rescue. The Carpathia’s passenger manifest includes the names of the 706 persons it picked up from Titanic’s lifeboats on the morning of April 15, 1912. The manifests collected by the Bureau of Immigration and Naturalization list 29 categories of questions asked of all persons entering the United States, from birthplace to where the person would be staying in the United States. The Titanic Relief Fund, set up by Ernest P. Bicknell in his capacity as director of the American Red Cross, raised $161,600.95 for Titanic survivors and families of the victims. (the British component raised $2,250,000). According to Red Cross ―Titanic Relief Fund‖ documents in the National Archives: The Director and other representatives of the Red Cross Committee were present when the Carpathia landed its passengers [at the port of New York on April 18]. The office of the committee was opened on the following morning, equipped with telephone service, printed stationery, the necessary blank forms and record cards, and with a staff of visitors and clerks supplied by the Charity Organization Society. Within two days substantially all the survivors of the third cabin passengers and many of the second cabin passengers had been visited and interviewed in their places of temporary shelter or at the Committee’s Office. This was extremely important. because comparatively few of the third cabin passengers remained in New York City. The highest percentage of victims were steerage, or ―third cabin‖ passengers, who were mainly poor immigrants coming to America. The ethical question of why first-class passengers were allowed to get into lifeboats ahead of those in second and third class became an issue for future investigation. 2 The unimaginable scale of the disaster led many people to write to the President of the United States. Dozens of letters came to President William H. Taft from citizens who were angered, inspired, or moved by the loss of the Titanic. They demanded an investigation into the sinking, shared ideas for the prevention of such disasters in the future, or expressed sympathy for the death of President Taft’s military aide, Maj. Archibald Butt. Butt, one of Taft’s closest friends, was returning from a six-week vacation aboard the Titanic, and his leave of absence papers and a copy of a letter of introduction from Taft to Pope Pius X are also in the National Archives. Congressional Hearings Lead To Legislation, Regulations Almost immediately after the disaster, a congressional hearing was convened on April 19, 1912. Extensive documentation of the Titanic’s voyage is contained within the proceedings of the U.S. Senate’s ―Titanic Disaster Hearings.‖ The report’s 1,042 pages document what a commerce subcommittee learned over its 17-day investigation of the causes of the wreck. The subcommittee’s chairman, Senator William Alden Smith (R-Michigan), spoke fervently of why he wished to document the event quickly: Our course was simple and plain–to gather the facts relating to this disaster while they were still vivid realities. Questions of diverse citizenship gave way to the universal desire for the simple truth. We, of course, recognized that the ship was under a foreign flag; but for the lives of many of our own countrymen had been sacrificed and the safety of many had been put in grave peril, it was vital that the entire matter should be reviewed before an American tribunal if legislative action was to be taken for future guidance on international maritime safety. 3 The subcommittee interviewed 82 witnesses and investigated everything from the inadequate number of lifeboats to the treatment of passengers riding steerage to the newly operational wireless radio machines. Smith also wanted to know why warnings of icebergs had been ignored. One of the themes emerging from the ―Titanic Disaster Hearings‖ is the excesses of the ―Gilded Age‖—wealth, power, and business in a newly technological world gone wild. The hearings were held in the glamorous Waldorf-Astoria Hotel in Manhattan. (Ironically, John Jacob Astor IV, who perished aboard the Titanic, had built the Astoria Hotel, which later became part of the Waldorf-Astoria.) Opposite the senators sat the first witnesses, White Star’s managing director J. Bruce Ismay and other company officials. Ismay was also president of the International Mercantile Marine Company, White Star’s American parent company. He was vilified in the press as a monster, as one who had put his own life and safety before that of women and children as the lifeboats were launched. Throughout the hearings, he remained confident, almost hubristic, regarding the ship’s stamina under pressure. In explaining how Titanic’s disaster could have been averted, he stated simply, ―If this ship had hit the iceberg stern on, in all human probability she would have been here to-day [the stern being the most reinforced part of the ship].‖ Instead, he said, the iceberg made ―a glancing blow between the end of the forecastle and the captain’s bridge.‖ He remained sentimental regarding the ship’s demise. In the lifeboat, he rowed the opposite direction of the sinking Titanic: ―I did not wish to see her go down. I am glad I did not.‖ 4 Ismay said the trip was a voluntary one for him, ―to see how [the ship] works, and with the idea of seeing how we could improve on her for the next ship which we are building.‖ He told the subcommittee, ―We have nothing to conceal, nothing to hide.‖ He was grilled again on the 10th day of the investigation, when he denied reports of speeding up the ship to ―get through‖ fields of ice; other eyewitnesses, however, would contradict him. Also interviewed the first day was Arthur Henry Rostron, the captain of the Carpathia. Rostron gave detailed information about the circumstances under which Titanic’s distress signals had been heard: the wireless operator was undressing for the night but still had his headphones on as the signal came across. Rostron also related the details of how he prepared the Carpathia to receive the hundreds of survivors in the lifeboats. He came alongside the first lifeboat at 4:10 a.m. on April 15 and rescued the last at 8:30 a.m. He then recruited one of the Carpathia’s passengers, an Episcopal clergyman, to hold a prayer service of thankfulness for those rescued and a short burial service for those who were lost. Rostron would later receive a special trophy as a symbol of gratitude from the survivors of the Titanic. It was presented to him by the legendary ―Unsinkable Molly [Margaret] Brown,‖ a wealthy Denver matron who assisted with the lifeboats. Rostron received many other memorials and a Medal of Honor from President Taft. The outcome of the hearings was a variety of ―corrective‖ legislation for the maritime industry, including new regulations regarding numbers of lifeboats and lifejackets required for passenger vessels. In 1914, as a direct result of the Titanic disaster, the International Ice Patrol was formed; 13 nations support a branch of the U.S. Coast Guard that scouts for the presence of icebergs in the Atlantic and Arctic Oceans. 5 Survivors, Families Seek Millions from White Star Beyond simply seeking corrective legislation to prevent future disasters, the survivors and the families of victims also sought redress for loss of life, property, and any injuries sustained. The limited liability law at the time, however, could restrict their claims significantly. The Titanic’s liability was protected by an 1851 law (―An Act to limit the Liability of Ship- Owners, and for other Purposes,‖ 9 Stat. 635) designed to encourage shipbuilding and trade by minimizing the risk to owners when disasters occurred. Under this law, in cases of unavoidable accidents, the company was not liable for any loss of life, property, or injury. If the captain and crew made an error that led to a disaster, but the company was unaware of it, the company’s liability was limited to the total of passenger fares, the amount paid for cargo, and any salvaged materials recovered from the wreck.

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